Boot of Big Government Comes Down on Gibson Guitar

Who would have thought that when fascism came to America, it would be implemented by harmless-sounding agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? In its latest crime against liberty, this malignant tentacle of Big Government wraps itself around the neck of an American icon:

Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson’s chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company’s manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. “The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier,” he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.

It isn’t the first time that agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service have come knocking at the storied maker of such iconic instruments as the Les Paul electric guitar, the J-160E acoustic-electric John Lennon played, and essential jazz-boxes such as Charlie Christian’s ES-150. In 2009 the Feds seized several guitars and pallets of wood from a Gibson factory, and both sides have been wrangling over the goods in a case with the delightful name “United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms.”

The question in the first raid seemed to be whether Gibson had been buying illegally harvested hardwoods from protected forests, such as the Madagascar ebony that makes for such lovely fretboards. … [W]ith the new raid, the government seems to be questioning whether some wood sourced from India met every regulatory jot and tittle.

Consider the recent experience of Pascal Vieillard, whose Atlanta-area company, A-440 Pianos, imported several antique BÃ¶sendorfers. Mr. Vieillard asked officials at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species how to fill out the correct paperwork — which simply encouraged them to alert U.S. Customs to give his shipment added scrutiny.

There was never any question that the instruments were old enough to have grandfathered ivory keys. But Mr. Vieillard didn’t have his paperwork straight when two-dozen federal agents came calling.

Facing criminal charges that might have put him in prison for years, Mr. Vieillard pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating the Lacey Act, and was handed a $17,500 fine and three years probation.

Just as non-politically correct food tastes better and non-politically correct cars drive better, musical instruments made out of non-politically correct materials sound better. Once again we see that liberalism being a totalitarian ideology, there is no corner of human existence that it won’t repress and diminish.

Pete Townshend goes to work for the US Government.

On tips from Ghost of FA Hayek, SR, Cargo Pilot, and oferphuxake. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.